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asheller writes "The Star Tribune tells us the zodiac signs have shifted. Earth's wobble has shifted the signs, a new one's been added and many of us have changed signs. Formerly a Cancer, I've apparently been upgraded to Gemini and am now married to an Ophiuchus, a new sign. What's yor sign? The new Zodiac Chart is pretty interesting." Here are some priceless reactions to this celestial development. As long as the Chinese Zodiac is unaffected, I'll still be able to accurately judge people based on when they were born, so please indicate in comments your (new) sign and birth year animal, so we'll be able to know where you're coming from.

Hello from your fellow Ophiuchus! I was a little depressed about losing the macho points associated with having the only zodiacal symbol that was armed with a weapon until I looked up what "Ophiuchus" is. The serpent bearer, represented by a guy clutching his snake. (No, that's not a euphamism; but even if it were, it'd still be a hell of a cool sign.)

According to the definitive authority on the matter (Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]):

According to Roman era mythography, the figure represents the healer Asclepius, who learned the secrets of keeping death at bay after observing one serpent bringing another healing herbs. To prevent the entire human race from becoming immortal under Asclepius' care, Zeus killed him with a bolt of lightning, but later placed his image in the heavens to honor his good works.

That's the same Asclepius whose staff (with the serpents) is the modern symbol of medicine.

I'll let others argue over whether the new Zodiac is valid (well, as "valid" as the zodiac can be...). As for me, I don't mind being an Ophiuchus. Maybe we should insist that we be referred to by its old name, Serpentarius.

Actually the staff of Asclepius only has one serpent. For some reason, the US medical industry especially, uses a staff with two serpents and wings, the Caduceus. Apparently, that symbol was used by a medical publisher and became a default symbol. The Caduceus was the symbol of Hermes (although it may date back before greek culture), who was the messenger god and also god of liars, thieves and of the dead who were passing from life to the underworld. Depending on your opinion of doctors, you might think that's spot on, or you might think it's bad advertising for their profession.

It's a bit of a stretch, but science is part of news for nerds. The fact that there's a disturbingly large portion of the public who's gullible enough to buy into the most appallingly stupid idea in millennia is kind of on track.

The articles cited aren't spoofs. The AP is perhaps the world's most important news service. Depressingly, the fact that people bought into it is real news.

(Now, I could turn around and question whether the number of people who actually bought into this was significant enough to merit it being real news. So there's a separate story on whether the wire services manufactured something from a relatively small number of stupid people. But sadly, I think it's pretty clear that the dimwits have a pretty substantial caucus.)

The ecliptic from the Earth's perspective is constant (by definition), and the Sun's travel across the ecliptic is about as constant. Astrologers don't REALLY believe that constellations occupy precisely 30 degree chunks of the ecliptic, with Aries starting precisely at the vernal equinox. The constellations were just a conventional way to label those segments.

What's slightly more disconcerting about this article is that Astrology knew about this long long ago. They have a name for when a new constellation reaches the vernal equinox, it's the beginning of an "Age". You know, like the "Age of Aquarius"?

Astrology is a superstitious hobby of zero scientific merit, but even within its own formulation this article should have no impact on it.

Its true that the definition is constant but, against the backdrop of stars, the ecliptic is anything but constant. The sun is in orbit around the galactic core so given enough time (100k years or so) you can certainly have a change where the ecliptic is compared to the background stars. Of course since those stars themselves are all in orbits too they will have also shifted relative to each other.

Astrology is a superstitious hobby of zero scientific merit, but even within its own formulation this article should have no impact on it.

...and what happens when stellar drift completely mixes up the constellations? Of course this article will ha

I have to disagree with you. It is rather a discredited scientific theory. The pursuit of which by for example Tycho Brahe proved the heavens not to be immutable as well as supplying the scientific data allowing Johannes Kepler to derive the laws of planetary motion.

Much like cold fusion is an interesting topic for research. However believing in horoscopes is similar to believing in special magnets creating fusion in your engine giving you better milage.

The ecliptic from the Earth's perspective is constant (by definition), and the Sun's travel across the ecliptic is about as constant.

This brought to mind an image of hundreds of astronomers grinning and chuckling as they read it.;-)

The ecliptic, generally defined as the plane of the Earth's orbit around the sun, is hardly a constant for most astronomers' purposes. There are all sorts of variations happening to the Earth's orbit over time, and most of them have been measured to at least several decimal places. For example, the Earth is strongly affected by the Moon, whose orbit is inclined by a bit over 5 degrees to the ecliptic, producing a quite measurable up-down motion of the Earth relative to the supposed plane of its orbit (which isn't nearly a plane due to this motion). Over longer periods, larger up-down wiggles in the Earth's motion are induced by Jupiter and Saturn (and all the other planets, but those are the two biggies). Jupiter and Saturn have orbits inclined 1.3 and 2.5 degrees relative to the Earth's orbit, so their pull has a small vertical component that's quite measurable, and causes slow changes in the Earth's orbit over the years.

As for the Sun's "travel" around the ecliptic, that presumably means its apparent motion in the sky due to the Earth's rotational speed. If you look that up, you'll find that the current estimate of the Earth's mean orbital speed is 29.78 km/s, but this varies from 29.29 km/s at aphelion (~ July 4) to 30.29 km/s at perihelion (~ Jan 3). This 1 km/s difference is about 3% of the orbital speed, so the Earth's orbital speed is only "constant" to one decimal place, but not to two places. The sun's apparent motion relative to the background stars would be the same as these numbers, and calling a 3% speed variation a constant would get you laughed out of amateur astronomer clubs.

Over longer periods of time, these variations in the Earth's orbit are fairly large relative to the current numbers. And, of course, there's the problem of the solar system's motions around the galaxy, which include interactions with all the nearby stars. Astronomers have accurate measurements of the "proper motion" of at least several hundred of the closest stars, none of which is quite in a constant position relative to the solar system. Their gravitational pulls on us produce small variations in the orbits of everything in the solar system, adding to the general chaos that gives large error bars to orbital predictions more than a thousand or so years in the future.

Actually, I read an interesting article a few years back that gave numbers for the effects on the Earth's orbit from the passage of several large near-Earth asteroids, and also for a few of the recent mass ejections from the sun. These also have a measurable effect on the Earth's orbit, which add up over the eons. This makes the concept of the "ecliptic" as a fixed plane an extreme over-simplification. The ecliptic is actually a very fuzzy concept. It describes a roughly planar volume that's a few thousand km thick (over a few years' time), and which slowly warps over eons. The Earth's actual position relative to this fuzzy volume varies in a complex manner that requires some extremely difficult calculations involving all the other massive bodies in the vicinity (including those near-Earth asteroids, which aren't entirely known, and solar mass ejections, which aren't predictable at all).

I agree with all of that except the "zero." Astrology makes people interested in astronomy, which is of enormous scientific merit.

Honestly... citation please?

As a former astronomer that took his personal time to head up monthly
star parties at our observatory in Moorpark, I can fully attest that the
only thing Astrology does for the 'common person' is fuck up the last
bit of astronomical sanity they could possibly have.

And the saddest thing to see from TFA is how people "don't believe it", lol
like they have the option to disbelieve a fact. Whooo. Wow.

Yes, folks, when you pull your head out of the sand... there's fresh air
to breathe.

I think Astrology is an interesting thing. The idea is pretty simple. The states and positions of the stars when you were born, and where they are today, affect you. That's fine. If people want to believe in burning bushes, dudes that can turn water into wine, etc., etc., etc. I hardly find it any more or less valid than anything else involved in religion and faith.

What I find particularly curious here is that an Astrologer should be an Astronomer first, and there is a backlash. Everything they do is fundamentally based upon the ability to accurately determine the states and positions of stars at a given time right? That's Astronomy.

Soooo.... Astronomy is now saying, "Hey dudes. We've been reading the "map" wrong all this time. Didn't account for this, that, and all the what have yous and stuff." Well, then wouldn't the most genuine and sincere there for an Astrologist to do is be thankful? Possibly peer review it, take it into consideration, and then use the knowledge to more accurately practice their craft?

This isn't news to any astrologer. As the article says, this is a 2000-year-old story. This was a conscious decision made by the forebearers of Western astrology to use a tropical (seasonal) astrology instead of sidereal (astronomical) astrology. They knew what they were doing. The only question is why to keep calling it astrology if it has nothing to do with the stars. Meanwhile, Hindu and other Eastern astrology is sidereal, and has always been based on where the sun actually is in the constellations.

The real fraud here is the way the science media sets up this same straw man every year so their believers can break their arms patting themselves on the back feeling superior to "those stupid pseudoscientific wannabees who believe in astrology".

The reality is that, as TFA hints at, western astrology hasn't been based on stars for thousands of years....approximately since the constellations were when they were assigned. It's based on equinoxes. Open any book on astrology that goes deeper than sun-sign ho

You say "straw man", I say "critical research failure". For my evidence, I submit every other science-related Slashdot article ever published, of which all have at least one post starting with "I have a PhD in the field and..." followed by an in-depth analysis of all the ways the article is wrong, regardless of the subject's notoriety.

When journalism gets even the facts about journalism itself wrong, you can't expect much from them with regards to accuracy. Or as a wise man once said, "never blame malice fo

I'm sorry, but your last two sentences are BS. And your first sentence sounds like a lot of butthurt, honestly.

If "neutral discussion" means accepting Astrology on par with Science in a discussion, I think you have the misapprehension that all ideas have equal weight in discussions. They don't. There are good ideas with evidence behind them, and there are those that have not gathered any hard evidence in the past 3000 years. Guess which one is Astrology?

Western Astrology being based upon equinoxes does not change the fact that astrology, in all its forms, is still superstition. It does not have any scientific merit or physical evidence to support its claims.

We do not have to read too much about astrology before the superstition/magic element becomes obvious.

You can change the details, but fundamentally, it is still based upon superstition/magic.

Maybe the article explains this, but I'm at work and can't read it. Wouldn't the stars changing only affect people born after the change(s) occurred? After all, if you were born under the sign of the Cancer, then the Earth wobbles differently, you were still born under the sign of the Cancer, but people born after the new wobble might not be. And since this is a matter of the Earth changing, they can't claim some obnoxious relativistic hocus pocus.

Religion pisses me off more than you can imagine. But Astrology... oh, Astrology is even worse. How can stupidity reach such amazing levels as to allow religion, astrology and such other crap to exist in the year 2011?

I happen to have paid for astrological readings many times. I don't really think astrology has anything to do with reality or astronomy, not even for a second; but I do enjoy it. It's rather like how I enjoy The Matrix even though it doesn't make any sense at all.

I happened to ask my astrologer about this many years ago (it's not like they just switched a couple days ago) and the astrologer was actually aware that the astrological symbols had changed, but assured me the Zodiac signs did not. It's been totally decoupled for decades and astrologers seem to be aware of it.

It's not like if you learned to precisely measure something (I don't know what it would be); you'd suddenly change all the symbols on your Tarot deck either. Heh. They're all complicated systems of nonsense. They don't really require further adjustments.

I'm sure there'll be TONS of new astrology books coming out because this is suddenly big news for some reason. It may even cause a schism, but it doesn't really matter which system you pick. A really good astrologer reads the man, not the stars.

I realize this is very likely the least friendly place to express these ideas, but I'll put myself on the firing line for those who may be genuinely interested in what the art and practice of astrology is about.

All the panic and hub-bub about this finding is coming from a great deal of ignorance about astrology. It's like the criticisms that came from Carl Sagan, where someone with a perspective on science is using demonstrably unscientific methods to put down or even berate (in the case of Sagan) the practice of astrology. It's no different than someone without a background in science claiming that all science is fraudulent due to a few fraudulent scientists.

Astrology makes its observations from a purely relative perspective from Earth. The sun *appears* to be in the sign of Aries on the Spring Equinox, so we say the sun is in Aries. Whether it is actually in absolute alignment with that constellation is not the claim, nor is it even relevant. Indeed, tropical astrology (what is predominantly used in the West) doesn't use the constellations at all but puts the zodiac as a fixed wheel around the Earth, so that the Spring equinox is always the first day of Aries, even though over the thousands of years since the Babylonians the constellation that aligns with the sun (from Earth's perspective) has moved to Pisces, and is now moving towards Aquarius, hence the coming "Age of Aquarius". That is of course the result of the so called precession of the equinoxes.

As for the 13th sign, that's old news. Astrologers have been debating the usefulness of Ophiuchus for decades at least.

Astrology is about understanding natural cycles, in particular the ways in which the cycles of planets and stars synchronize with the cycles of individual and collective human events. It is not about absolute claims of prediction based on absolute alignments. Newspaper horoscopes are, on the whole, a fraud, and not consistent with the true intention and purpose of astrology.

Hope that clears things up. There's no crisis in astrology, you're still who you thought you were....or not.

Astrology is about understanding natural cycles, in particular the ways in which the cycles of planets and stars synchronize with the cycles of individual and collective human events. It is not about absolute claims of prediction based on absolute alignments. Newspaper horoscopes are, on the whole, a fraud, and not consistent with the true intention and purpose of astrology.

Please explain this part. Especially what kind of understanding it brings, and how the synchronization thing works.

Please explain this part. Especially what kind of understanding it brings, and how the synchronization thing works.

I am happy to give it a shot. The understanding afforded by astrology is similar to what you might get from a good psychotherapist. It can paint a picture that can reveal insights that are not easily discovered any other way. At it's essence, astrology is simply another language for understanding oneself in context with the surrounding world.

As for how the synchronicity works, well that's the great mystery. It is the point where this philosophy, like all philosophies do at some point, including science, begins to dream. Some like to say the planets "beam" energy to us and influence us. In my view, this is a naive misunderstanding of astrology and human free will. I think of the planets as more like a map. They hint at potentials that can be derived, understood and applied to make life richer and more engaging.

Also what predictions are made? Give a few examples

As I stated, astrology is not about making absolute predictions. It can, however, provide a guidance system for navigating life and, often times, in dealing with a crisis scenario. My own example has to do with a health crisis I experienced in 2008. I began having digestive problems and a great deal of pain and tension in my pelvic floor. At this time, Pluto, in Capricorn, was at a 90 degree angle (a "square aspect" in astrology, an aspect of tension) to my natal Pluto, in Libra. In astrology Pluto rules digestion as well as the area of one's nether-regions, including the pelvic floor. My 6th house (the area of the chart that rules health, among other things) is cusp Scorpio, the sign that Pluto rules. In other words, my chart makes it rather clear that I would suffer health issues in the area of my body that Pluto rules, and these issues were set off just as transiting Pluto began to make an "adverse" aspect to my natal Pluto. Moreover, according to an ancient chart on medical astrology, zero degrees Libra (where my natal Pluto is stationed) represents the pelvis. Note that I did not deduce these factors until after the fact, I had only just begun looking at astrology when my health issues first began.

Also during this time, Jupiter was moving into conjunction with my natal Jupiter in Capricorn (what is termed a "Jupiter return"). Because my Jupiter is in the 8th house (the house of money, inheritance, taxes, among other things) I had already wondered if the Jupiter return would bring about an inheritance or some kind of money windfall. As it turned out, my grandfather passed away at this time and left me a sizable inheritance, much more than I had assumed he had saved.

This post is already long winded, so I'll skip other examples. Again, no one made any hard predictions, but the clear relationship between astrological interpretation and my own life experience cannot be ignored, not by me at least. So I have looked to astrology for a greater sense of context and guidance, and it has been of valuable help.

For astrology to really work, it does require a surrender of one's bias against phenomenon that cannot be directly sensed by physical senses. It requires an acceptance of at least the possibility that there is greater intelligence at work than what our human brains can initially perceive; that the synchronicity of "as above, so below" can only exist if a universal consciousness is extant. Modern science has difficulty getting around its perceptual biases because it requires direct physical proof to stake a claim. This is of course as it should be. However, that does not mean that what science cannot falsify does not exist, such as a higher governing intelligence (note I am not referring to "God" in the religious sense). For my money, my direct experience trumps any scientific journal or academic teaching. My direct experience is also mutable. I don't claim to know anything with absolute certainty, and I hold all other sources of kno

this guy will say it better than me [badastronomy.com] you are simply spouting non sense, you haven't any evidence at ALL that astrology works beyond cold/hot reading and forer effect.

"For astrology to really work, it does require a surrender of one's bias against phenomenon that cannot be directly sensed by physical senses. " I will let any rational person read that twice, and try to reconciliate thazt with the fact astrology pretend to make prediction on people's personality, personality *which* indubitably can directly

As long as the Chinese Zodiac is unaffected, I'll still be able to accurately judge people based on when they were born, so please indicate in comments your (new) sign and birth year animal, so we'll be able to know where you're coming from.

Clearly this wobble is of a global nature and is having negative affects (it's probably anthropogenic as well). I think we should spend trillions of dollars to find a way stop global wobbling and return the earth to the way it was in the past.

Especially ancient ones. I learned about the Earth's precession back in middle school. I remember this because for all of about 2 hours I was teased for being called a "Virgo the Virgin". Yes, I know a horrible thing to call a 12 year-old. But, I also remember salvation came when the astronomer told us about the change in the Earth's orientation that would allow me a technical out.

People have been using the wrong horoscopes! That means that many of the predictions that horoscopes have made and that world leaders have based their policies on have been WRONG! It's no wonder that our world has been in so much trouble!

What I find amusing is that (now mostly forgotten) SF writer John Sladek figured out that there ought to be 13 constellations in the zodiac, rather than 12 (on the argument that there are not 12, but 12 1/2 lunar months in a year-- need an extra constellation to account for one per month)-- and wrote a satirical "nonfiction" book "Arachne Rising" explaining the conspiracy that "suppressed" the missing 13th constellation. (under the pseudonyn "John Vogh").That's why astrology is usually wrong, everybody! T

Folks looking at the new Sidereal calendar and thinking their sign changed are probably wrong. In theory (since its BS anyway), what matters is what the sign was when you were born. Not the chart that applies if you were born today (or every minute like most suckers).

for the last time it is: "I could'NT care less"... meaning it is impossible for you to care even less about something

Clearly if he could not care less he wouldn't have bothered saying so. Now to get back on topic, this gem of a story by the star is actually popular on twitter now which means a whole ton of people ought to care less.

Yup. Anyone who has taken a cursory glance at an astronomy or a biology or really any science book knows astrology is absurd. More than anything, I think this story is worthwhile for pointing out how big a place astrological signs and their "meaning" still have in our world. Hopefully this helps push it out.

In actuality, people have known this for millennia. The precession of Earth's axis has been known about since the Greeks, and is pretty basic astronomy. The wobble of our axis takes about 26,000 years to go around once, and since the current system has been around in some form for about 2,500 years, that means we've gone 1/10 of the way around. 12 signs, 10% off - that means most people change by one sign, and lo, so it is.

Additionally, constellations are not all the same size, so some should be much more common than others. More to the point, constellations do not form a perfectly connected circle, so many people are born technically between signs. What this means is that astrological signs are, at this point, completely dependent on a man-made calendrical system, which have changed throughout our history, sometimes radically.

Erm. I don't think you really need to take even a single glance at a science book to know astrology is absurd. It's just common sense. Kind of how I don't need to read a math text book to stop and say "hey, I suspect that numerology may be bullshit!".

What's horrifying is when you realize how many people out there waste their time with it as an amusement -- or worse, how many people actually believe in this shit and live their life around it. Google something like "which zodiac sign is more likely to be OCD" and you'll see long Yahoo! Answers (the biggest waste of internet use in existence) discussions that will make you want to slit your wrists.

Tropical astrology divides signs into 12 equally-sized divisions, anchored at the spring and fall equinox. (Doing this just means it's not actually based on the stars, but on where the stars were 3000 years ago.) But it doesn't change based on the calendar system being used, as you suggested.

Sidereal astrology is based on the sun's place in the constellations. Why it might be arbitrary, the entire sky is divided into constellations. Astronomers identify stars by the constellation they are located in and

Uh, yeah. You obviously have no idea how the zodiac symbols were really decided. On the day you were born the Sun is sitting in the middle of a constellation. That was how it was determined. You are also ignoring the fact that not only do the zodiac symbols rotate slowly through the calender, because of the exact same second rotational axis, so do the seasons. In 11,500 years, Dec. 21 will be midsummer in the northern hemisphere. I don't know how you'd think it has anything to do with seasons, anyway. Leave

Uh, yeah. You obviously have no idea how the zodiac symbols were really decided. On the day you were born the Sun is sitting in the middle of a constellation. That was how it was determined. You are also ignoring the fact that not only do the zodiac symbols rotate slowly through the calender, because of the exact same second rotational axis, so do the seasons. In 11,500 years, Dec. 21 will be midsummer in the northern hemisphere. I don't know how you'd think it has anything to do with seasons, anyway. Leave it to the superstitious to ignore any actual facts or history.

Uh, yeah. You obviously have no idea how the zodiac symbols were really decided. Western astrology has always used the tropical zodiac which is based on the four seasons, instead of the sidereal zodiac which is based on the location of the sun in the various constellations. I don't know how you'd think it doesn't have anything to do with seasons anyway, I've known that since at least middle school. Leave it to the self-righteous to ignore any actual facts or history.

If I vetted technical hires, stuff like this would instantly disqualify applicants. If they believed in claptrap like this, $DEITY knows what other gibberish they'd use to explain their incompetence in the future.

And if I vetted hiring decision-makers, you would be instantly disqualified for this, because you fail to understand that a person can be a complete moron in one area, while still know what they're doing in a separate area. You still have to test them on their actual merits, you can't just throw them out because of your preconceived notions.

Not true. A person can display sound reasoning ability in one area, while being blind in another. People aren't uniform, they don't approach everything the same. I would be a bit concerned, and test that person to make sure they approach their job duties with some sense, but I wouldn't reject them out of hand. That's idiotic.